WHY YOU WANT TO DECLUTTER

I know that quite a few times we tend to ask:"why I should I do this?" Well here is why. You remember one of my favorite clutter spots? That space of floor between my bed and the window? It attracks clutter like a pile of s*** attracts flies. It usually starts with a ppiece of clothing thatI took off right before going to bed. Then you never now, a quick emeergency clean up somewhere else a baskedt of stuff to be there "just for the afternoon" and before you know it. Voila. Mt Clutter. I'Ve watched it grow over thelast few days, maybe more like 2 weeks and foudn excuses every day why it can wait one more day. I finally decluttered it. okay. Shifted some, but cleared the whole areay, got rid of quite a bit, dusted vacuumed and was quite proud of myself. Wouldn't you know it 36 hours later with Ella sleeping in my bed, THIS happenend.

5:30 am she needed to go to the bath room. Swings her feet out of MY bed (poor me ran off to the couch in one of the kid's rooms. IT is quite comfy I must admit) somehow, even thought the sunis up already and she should be able to see, swings right into my tall reading lamp. Of course the reading lamp falls over. James's is mostly metal, mine has a nice milky glass lamp shade. OR should I say had? Well,it falls, hits the marble window sill and explodes into 1 million little fragments. I think I was standing upright onthe couch from that crash. Sank back decided I am too tored and wanteed to sleep. Fortunately my subcvoncious managed to get through to my concious brain and told it that the soudn came from my room, that it was GLASS, that there ar kids sleepingin there and that I had to ACT NOW! Miss Sleepy Head just stared at me. Glass on the floor, the window sill, the bed. EVERYWHERE! VEry fun to clean that up at 5:30 am, but if this had happend just 2 days early I would have had glass shards all over clothes and 2 baskets full of hoard with the promise of cutting my fingers any time I touched any of that. 

So keep in mind, things will happen. You'll break something. Spill something. And curseyourself for getting it all over your hoard. I think it took less than 5 min to clean it all up. And admist feeling sorry for losing that lamp and for myself for not being in bed anymore I was just happy the area was cleared and things were simple. 

Do ask me next week if I got rid of the lamp...

CHEAP LABOR

Last night I went to bed around 6:30 to "read a little". 2 pages later I was history. I did wake up 2 or 3 times but decided to not get up until morning. I actually made it. By 7 am I felt well rested and full of energy, and that was after rolling over 2 times. 

After 12 hours of sleep and ready to tackle this house I decided it was time to torture the kids a little bit. I have been way to laid back about daily chores lately. Clean up your own room has not been stressed much and they rarely had to put away their own clothes. The girls had an easy life especially. Marie can whine like no other and I just didn't have the nerve to listen to it. Ella will happily help 9 out of 10 times. Plus, I wanted their clothes to be put away nicely and the just won't happen if they do it. The boys did rather well the last 2 weeks with staying on top of their room, Alex gets assigned little things that he prefers to do "later" and Matt unloads the dishwasher first thing every morning without ever being told. So thanks to Ella and Matt, Alex and Marie were off the hook. That would change today.

I had my mind set on making them each work for 60 min today. I did not tell them, I just announced that it was "help Mommy day" today. Matt had 26 min under his belt before the other 3 even got up. He was done by 11 am. That was the moment I took to announce that any kid that worked for a total of 60 min before 5 pm would be taken to the ice cream parlor. They were all rather excited. Matt hat a smug smile across his face as he had earned it already. Ella wanted to work off her 40 min in one stretch, Alex was confident but didn't get off the couch for his additional 49 min and Marie broke down sobbing (fake!) that that was "way to hard!" During the day Alex decided we could go without him, he'd rather play computer games. Marie spent more time whining then working and Ella realized she still had homework left. 

I sneakily assigned Alex 2 min chores to fill up his account, so when we told him he only had 35 min left to work he reluctantly got going.  Once he was down to 15 min he was excited and found jobs until he was done (smack at 5 pm).

Ella got done easily, homework and all. Marie got an extension and finally finished her 60 min by getting all the groceries from the car. The hardest thing for her was that every time I told her:"do this still and you are done," (referring to yet another 10 or 5 min block) she thought she would be done all the way. So she was rather frustrated. I will have to communicate clearer next time.

We made it to the ice cream parlor after dinner. Once there, the kids happily agreed to making this a Saturday tradition. Work for 60 min and then go to have ice cream. To sweeten the deal we agreed that it would even include the playground if they got done earlier next time. 

I must say that getting 4 hours of labor for the prize of 10 scoops of ice cream was a great deal!